The “Devil Wears Prada” was released in 2006. I don’t remember the movie well, but I remember liking it. Robin wanted to see it, and, although I probably wouldn’t have gone by myself, I was looking forward to seeing the iconic Meryl Streep. I can’t remember another sequel that took 20 years to make.
Andy (Anne Hathaway) is a serious journalist working for a respected publication. A minute before she receives an award at a dinner for journalists, Andy, along with all the other journalists sitting at her table, were fired via texts. The parent company was downsizing, and Andy’s team wasn’t contributing enough to the bottom line. Fortunately, Andy immediately lands on her feet (probably with Ferragamo shoes) and becomes the Features Editor at “Runway,” the magazine where she worked as the Second Assistant to Miranda (Meryl Streep) 20 years ago. Miranda, now Editor-in-Chief, didn’t hire Andy and doesn’t want her there. She tells Andy that she expects her to fail. Miranda is critical, demanding, impossible to please, controlling, cold, and very sarcastic (but often her sarcasm is very funny), while Andy is charming, warm, and uber-competent, in a low-key way. “Runway” is now primarily an online publication, and the parent company wants to increase the traffic, thereby increasing advertising revenue. Andy’s goal is to get the subscribers to click on the feature articles more often. Andy writes some of the articles to give the publication more depth and gravitas, but the readers don’t respond as positively as she had anticipated.
Miranda has previously made a huge mistake that infuriated Runway’s best client, Dior. Miranda takes Andy down to the new flagship Dior store where Andy meets Emily (Emily Blunt – famous for her tact). Emily previously worked as the First Assistant to Miranda when Andy was working there is 2006. They were on friendly terms then, but not close. (I also have been wondering if there has ever been another movie where two of the three main actors’ first names were the same as the first names of their film characters. Perhaps there is some deep symbolic meaning to this decision that I have missed.)
The main theme of the movie is Andy’s relationship with Miranda and both of them trying to save “Runway” in their own way, from either elimination or devolving into something worthless, due to profit-margin-focused upper management decisions. Andy has a romantic interest, but there are only a couple of scenes with him and their interactions are so superficial that I think the film would have been more focused and improved with this storyline left out. The film tries to build suspense in saving “Runway” from what appears to be a radical and very detrimental take-over and re-structuring, but I didn’t care much what would happen to the publication or how the three leads would respond to it. The movie tries to be both a comedy and a compelling drama, but it fails on both counts. On the other hand, it’s nice to watch Hathaway and Streep perform and play off each other, so I think it’s still worth renting.
Bottom Line: The Devil may still wear Prada, but now he’s taking hard-earned money from movie fans for a film that’s only as good as your average rental.
